In a wide-ranging and at times disarmingly candid conversation, historian and independent journalist Moona (Muniza) Ansari sat down with host Soraya M. Deen on the latest episode of Conversations at the Peace Table — a podcast Soraya M. Deen describes as her own personal commitment to “pause, reflect, and engage differently.” What followed was over an hour of layered history, uncomfortable truths, and a direct challenge to American Muslims to reclaim their civic identity.

The episode covers centuries — from 1776 to the 1979 Iranian Revolution to today’s social media-driven narratives — and lands on a simple but urgent thesis: we cannot understand where we are unless we understand where we have been. And most people, Ansari argues, simply have not done that homework.

One of the episode’s most striking revelations concerns the birth of American diplomacy. Long before modern geopolitical tensions shaped the perception of Muslim-majority nations as adversaries of the West, it was a Muslim kingdom that first extended its hand to the fledgling United States.

Ansari reminded listeners that Morocco was the first country in the world to formally recognize U.S. independence — in 1777, just a year after the Declaration. The Ottoman Empire facilitated American trade across its territories, and Egypt developed its own early commercial ties with the new republic.

“Not many people know it was Morocco,” Ansari said. “When you put the narrative in the middle, they think it’s because of religion. It is not. It’s the time period.” The historical record, she argues, reveals a relationship built on mutual interest and cultural respect — not antagonism.

Perhaps the episode’s most historically dense — and politically charged — section concerns the reality of Jewish life within Muslim empires before the rise of 20th-century nationalism. Ansari draws a careful distinction between monarchical governance and militant nationalist rule, arguing the two operated by entirely different moral codes.

Under Muslim monarchies, she contends, Jewish communities were not merely tolerated — they were economically and professionally integrated. Jewish communities in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Algeria, and Albania helped build hospitals, financial systems, and civic institutions. “Second-class citizens do not help you build the community,” Ansari observed. “Only first-class citizens who have a say get to do that.”

She is careful not to erase complexity: the Jizya tax existed, and Jewish communities did hold a distinct civic status. But she draws a firm line between that reality and the systematic expulsion and rights-stripping that followed when militant nationalist leaders displaced monarchies across the region.

Sa Dean raised the near-forgotten chapter of the Jewish exodus from Arab lands — an estimated 900,000 Jews who fled, were expelled from, or otherwise left Muslim-majority countries in the mid-20th century. Ansari connects this directly to the rise of nationalism and to specific militant leaders whose rise to power ended centuries of coexistence.

“When they say Jews are just Zionists,” Ansari said pointedly, “you’re believing a narrative. Can you tell us what happened to the Iraqi Jews? They don’t know. They don’t know. They were once upon a time there.”

The conversation moves to one of the most contested geopolitical questions of our time — and Ansari does not shy from taking a clear position. She argues that the Palestinian cause has repeatedly been sabotaged not by external enemies, but by the nationalist leaders who nominally champion it.

The episode’s final act turns inward — to the American Muslim community itself. Both Soraya M. Deen and Ansari express frustration with a civic landscape in which Muslim-American leaders have, in their view, been permitted to prioritize foreign causes over the national interest.

Ansari praised organizations like AMMWEC (American Muslims Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council) as the model: interfaith, American-rooted, working with Congress, with Israeli counterparts, with Christian and Jewish allies. “If you were to come into Congress tomorrow, you’ll have many haters — because you are giving the American people the power versus their personal narratives,” she told Soraya M. Deen. “But you can earn Christian and Jewish votes because you worked with the Israelis and you give them every report.”